The Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency will hold a one-day retail period Wednesday for its $35.7 million sale of fixed-rate, single-family housing revenue bonds.
MassHousing will hold its institutional sale Thursday, through negotiation. Morgan Stanley is lead manager.
The agency will sell $32.1 million in Series 160 taxable refunding bonds and $3.6 million in Series 161 non-taxable new-money bonds. MassHousing plans to save between 5% and 8% depending on prepayments, according to a spokesman. The bonds will mature from 2013 to 2023.
MassHousing's single family housing revenue bond program has $1.3 billion of debt outstanding as of March 31, the agency said.
Moody's Investors Service rates the bonds Aa2 while Standard & Poor's assigns AA, both with stable outlooks. Fitch Ratings does not rate the agency's single-family indenture.
"The Aa2 rating is based on the program's solid financial position and performance and characteristics of the underlying mortgage portfolio," Moody's wrote in a report.
According to Moody's, the program's asset-to-debt ratio is roughly 1.1 and its insurance provisions are satisfactory. The mortgage mix includes MassHousing and federal programs, with the agency's mortgage insurance fund covering about 52% of the loan portfolio.
"Mortgage delinquencies under the program continue to be low, and are below both state and national averages in all delinquency categories," Moody's wrote.
Moody's warned that a severe economic downturn could increase delinquencies and foreclosures, and any credit deterioration of Genworth Financial Inc., which is responsible for 90% of claims under a reinsurance agreement, could increase exposure to losses that Genworth would otherwise cover.
MassHousing, which the state legislature created, made its first loan in 1970. It has provided more than $13 billion in financing. It sold $75.4 million of Series 2012 A housing bonds on Aug. 8.
Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP is bond counsel for this week's bond sale, while McCarter & English LLP is representing the underwriters.
